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Nanobots, Cybernetics and Androids-Oh My!

Jessica Chobot
© N/A

It’s normal to go through “phases” during your life. In high school I went through varying degrees of the teeny-bopper, Sadie Hawkins dance, dating the football player group. When that got annoying I switched it up to the pseudo-intellectual, poetry reading, Sandman comics, “Squid” clique (I believe you kids call it “Emo” now). From there it was a short skip and a hop on over to the Goth side via LARPing White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade and wearing more eyeliner then a Siouxsie and the Banshees poseur.  

Most people that are accused of following a “type” usually righteously deny such an accusation and list one thousand and one things that separate themselves from whichever societal club they’ve pigeonholed themselves in. 

Personally, I miss being an obvious “type.” I drew great pleasure from dressing up in fishnets and spiked, steel-toed boots that I had acquired in trade with the token lesbian in my AP art class. Nowadays, instead of making up my face like some deranged Kabuki actor in love with Robert Smith,  I find myself pushing thirty, checking for wrinkles (I am highly suspicious that the area of my forehead between my two eyebrows will be the first to betray me), and carrying around one whopper of a secret which helps to make all my generic and everyday normalcy bearable. 

I want to be an android.     

I want to be able to plug myself directly into my computer. While my eyes go blank and I look as if I’m sitting there dead, what I’m actually doing is streaming through the matrix, checking out and commanding a gazillion different things at once, all via the internet. I want to be the Major from Ghost in the Shell, Neo from The Matrix, Molly from Neuromancer. 

Does science perpetuate sci-fi, or does sci-fi perpetuate science? I lean towards the latter. Science fiction is an art form and like every art form, it influences the imaginations of scientists and engineers. Through that influence, the execution of bringing such flights of fancy to fruition means that we eventually end up with nanobots in our bloodstream and USB plugs in the back of our heads.     

Morpheus wasn’t kidding when he said the rabbit hole runs deep. For one, the possibility of being able to buy next seasons reinforced cybernetic arms at the mall isn’t that far off. Just look at our cyberpunk pop culture for a hint at how fast we’ve come in such a short amount of time. Neuromancer, written and published back in 1984 by William Gibson, is often given credit for establishing today’s modern internet verbiage such as: matrix and cyberspace and has even been credited by Jack Womack for directly influencing the existence of the internet itself (if such is the case, I owe William Gibson a gigantic thank you for my job and Keanu Reeves should seriously consider doing the same). Sci-Fi movies have reigned supreme and gathered cult status at the box office with Dark City, The Matrix, Tron, Blade Runner and even a select big screen showing of the anime Ghost in the Shell. Videogames have advanced from 8bit graphics back in the 80s’ to today’s uber-realistic CGI mapping for home consuls (unless you’re Nintendo, but that’s a whole other ball of wax). Most schools have the internet and kindergartners are being trained on understanding and using computers. To think that we’ve gone from the mere concept of cybernetics and interweb connectivity with Gibson’s book back in ‘84 to the actual execution and advancement of in-home computers all within 23 years is as frightening as it is astounding. 

Second, is the idea of acquiring never ending life, or at least, never ending youth through cyberscience. Often sci-fi movies that follow in the vein of The Matrix and Blade Runner focus more on technology and humans problematic interactions with it than the original desires for creating that technology in the first place. The blue and red pill within The Matrix wasn’t just about Neo’s choice to awaken to the truth and become a matrix-wielding ass kicker. It was the acceptance that the truth and all it brings is volatile, dangerous and easily exploitable. 

As I’m sitting here writing this, I posed a question to my friend about the concept of self and soul within a cybernetic future. Essentially, the query I threw at him was: If one had the ability to download one’s soul and concept of self within a younger android body; does one become AI by default because at that point it becomes a copy of the original?  

His answer? Yes.  Due to the fact that the download is not the original but is essentially being filtered into hard code, it therefore has to be considered as artificial intelligence. 

My retort? True, but if you think that soul and concept of self is only in existence due to neurons and electrons firing off within the human mind which is, in basic terms, nothing more than an organic computer, isn’t the soul nothing more than an program in the first place? 

“Good point,” he said, “but that’s why it’s called artificial intelligence. Its no longer organic.” 

Certainly this is something to think about. Due to how vain humankind is, the option of downloading one’s “self” into a younger cybernetic body probably isn’t too far off in the future. Just imagine being able to live forever just by hopping from better, more highly developed body to body. Making a copy of a copy of a copy each and every time. At what point do you stop? Will you eventually copy yourself right out of existence? Who or what is one’s “true self” anyway? 

I’d put money down that I’ll see it happen within my life time....and I’m not the betting type. Looks like I just might get my wish after all. 

I’m choosing to take the blue pill (or is it the red?).